Advance: (Advance Industries) (Book 1)

by K A Duggsy

  I choose to ignore most of what she said because if I were to address her suggestion we’d be here a while and I’m in a rush.

  “Shut up! She comes and if you don’t like it you can go on your own. No one is forcing you to remain with us. In fact, I’d be intrigued to see how you fare alone. Those men obviously despise you. Be my guest – leave!” I offer holding my arm out in the direction of the door.

  She stomps her foot petulantly and crosses her arms over her chest. Her full red lips turn into a pout and her beauty momentarily vanishes. I can no longer see her appeal, her features seem too sharp, her nose slightly too long, her high cheekbones too defined.

  Suddenly she claps her hands and smiles. “You’re interested in her!” She accuses.

  “Of course I am; she was our breakthrough. You should be more interested in her too, especially her well-being.”

  She shakes her head. “No Fraser, you’re interested in her. I never saw this coming. I thought you preferred your women with more curves and know how. Or is that the appeal? Have you never sampled an innocent before?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Celia. That’s against the rules.”

  “Rules schmules. We weren’t meant to fraternise either but that didn’t stop us.” She takes a step closer and runs her hand over the arm of my lab coat. “I didn’t hear any complaints,” she whispers so only I can hear.

  I push her away, this is typical, she thinks she can flirt her way out of any crisis.

  “It’s not gentlemanly to complain about a woman’s charms or lack of, especially when we’re in the middle of exploring each other’s bodies. But now that you mention it...”

  “You jerk!” She spits raising her hand to slap me.

  I pull her towards me by her raised palm, so her body is flush against my front. “Don’t push me, Celia. I’m not the same gentleman I once was, living on the street will do that to a guy. Drop it! I won’t ask again.”

  I move in front of her to address the others ignoring the fact they witnessed that exchange.

  “I vote that we separate into smaller groups. It would be useful if someone could get to the control room and view the monitors to find their movements. If we know exactly where they are we have a better chance of escaping this with our people.”

  A young man whose name I can never remember raises his hand and volunteers to head there. We agree that he will alert us via our comm-recs when he has a visual of everyone we want to avoid.

  “We also need a group to get to the med room to stock up on vials of sedatives. Keep your eyes peeled though for anything that can be used as a weapon. Until we hear back from the control post you need to keep your wits about you. Any takers?”

  Four of my colleague’s raise their hands, three men and a woman and I realise I’ve been left with Dr Bowers.

  “Franny I need you with me, so Celia you are with team two.”

  Before either of them have chance to object I walk over to the door and look into the hallway. All clear. My apprehension is threatening to overwhelm me. This isn’t my area of expertise but I don’t know what else to do. We can’t stay here and wait for them to come back but wandering around my second home now it’s been invaded is, to be honest scary.

  “Okay. Let’s do this!” What I don’t add is – before I change my mind.

  Chapter 23

  Kye

  I sit back after watching the final disc, the two I watched before it has been broken into pieces and thrown across the room. They gleam like menacing shards of glass matching the menacing mood I’m now in.

  I have a foul taste in my mouth and for the first time in years I want a smoke, no I need a smoke. That’s the thing about wanting and needing, sometimes the line blurs and greed interferes, before you know it you’re doing something not for want or need but simply because you can. We try to explain it away with those simple words as if that excuses our actions, but nothing excuses what I just watched.

  No amount of reasoning will ever make me accept that torturing girls is acceptable. That watching them while they sleep is okay. They weren’t even granted the privacy of that. Watching them be groped while they’re so out of it from the drugs they’ve been injected with. Watching them be terrorised. Listening to them pleading all for it to fall on deaf ears. I wonder how many times and by how many people these discs have been watched, did they get their rocks off from viewing the sickening things I just saw?

  My heart breaks for Faith. She is unaware of how violated she really has been. Her interview after returning to this time was harrowing; I had to force myself to keep watching. She came back so trusting, so unaware of what these people were capable of and they played her to perfection. They fucked with her mind, made her believe in a life she’d never led. Despite all her trials she rarely feels sorry for herself; she embraced life in my time. She understands better than anyone that life shouldn’t be wasted, that we’re born to live. Except she wasn’t, she was born solely for experimentation.

  I’m ready to find her. I’m ready to stop screwing around and acting like an adolescent. I’m ready to make her feel valued every day from here on out. Maybe my adoration can cleanse what her subconscious has repressed.

  She should be cherished always. I don’t want her to ever doubt that she’s safe, loved and free from the ties that bind her. And to do that I have to get my shit together and take down Advance Industries.

  I walk over to the gun cabinet and pick up one of the smaller looking guns. It has a long firing end and I fiddle with it carefully trying to find out if it works. I inspect it again and note the cylinder shaped part. I release it and it swings out. Strangely it’s filled with what I presume must be bullets in each hole? Six in total. They’re gold and after studying the contents for a few seconds I replace it. Okay so it’s loaded, now how do I work it? I turn it over carefully in my hand, this thing petrifies me. I keep expecting it to go off as I do it.

  I open the window and stare out at the greenery. I can’t see anyone in the immediate surroundings so I raise the gun and pull the metal lever? It stays in place and I breathe a sigh of relief. I wish I’d paid more attention to studying weapons from days of old but it seemed so pointless, none of the weapons were supposed to exist anymore and the amount of different guns I would have had to research and memorise would have been just a waste of better spent time. I finger the trigger gently, aiming through the open window before pressing with my index finger. Boom! Holy shit it worked!

  The little lever I pulled to start with has jumped back to its original place. Is that switch a safety feature? Do I have to pull the lever before I can fire or is it likely to just go off anyway? I tuck it into the pocket of my jumpsuit very carefully, showing it a respect I’m not too sure it deserves. I might not be a great aim with this heavy weapon but I’m a quick learner and either way I’m using it on all the men here that deserve to die.

  First things first – I need to find Faith.

  Faith

  I’m moving but my legs aren’t. My stomach is in knots; I can only describe it like a severe kind of period pain. I feel like I’m bruised from the inside out and curl into a ball to try and ease the discomfort. It’s definitely more painful than the fireworks going off behind my eyes; in fact, I think it might even cancel out all the other pain I’m feeling. The fluorescent lights filling the hallway irritates my eyes further, so after opening them briefly I squeeze them shut and pray for sleep to claim me.

  As usual my prayers go unanswered. They always do. To be honest I don’t believe in God anymore so I don’t know why I ask for His help as often as I do, who else is there to ask though, except for a made up entity? My curiosity stands forward and I have to open my eyes and see what trouble I’m in now. Ha maybe Advance Industries should have named me Trouble instead of Faith! I certainly get into it a lot.

  I roll over on to my back and bring my knees up. A whoosh of air escapes from my lips at the pain triggered from such a simple movement. A woman regards me from my left, she’s wa
lking alongside whatever I’m being pulled along on, and I follow her gaze to my right and see Fraser also walking next to me. I try to sit up but a shock of dizziness prevents me.

  Ugh, how come it’s always me injured and feeling like death? My pain threshold should be better than this by now. Why don’t they just kill me and get it over and done with? I know they think I’m important, blah, blah, blah but seriously no-one is important enough to go through all this... effort? Struggle? Are they not as fed up as me of all this to-ing and fro-ing? When will it end? When will they give up and see the light?

  Have they not realised that maybe it was a fluke, a one off? I’m not special; it’s the Advance tube they should be concentrating on if they really want answers. What can I tell them? That I went to the future, a future that is so much better than the time we live in. Sure it took plenty of adjusting to but I loved it there. The way of life was so much more simplistic, carefree and the people were friendly. Imagine that, a society where the majority of people weren’t judgemental, were quick to offer help and always ready with a friendly smile.

  There were rule-breakers, of course there were, Kye wouldn’t have a job otherwise. There will always be people ready to take advantage, looking for mischief and something for nothing but Kye’s time was a refreshing change. That might be because I’d never been outside in the city before I travelled there, but armed with my memories from my return and the fake job I did, I know that’s not the case. People in this time are lacking, I don’t know about off-grid dwellers but here in the city it’s almost like something is broken.

  “Fraser?”

  Gently he says, “Yes?”

  “I’ll tell you what you want to know. I can’t do this anymore.”

  He nods slightly and I wonder if he’s as tired of this as I am.

  “We’re nearly there. We’ll talk then okay?”

  “Nearly where?”

  “My office. How are you feeling?”

  I chuckle without humour. “Do you care?”

  “Contrary to popular belief, yes, I do. I never wanted to hurt you. I still don’t. I’m... sorry.”

  “Wow you almost sound as if you mean that.”

  “I deserve that but you have to understand...”

  “I don’t have to understand anything Fraser. You’re like two different people; I can’t keep up with your changing perspectives. You’re so contradictory, do you know what?”

  His lips press into a straight displeased line. “It’s been mentioned once or twice.”

  I snort out a laugh but stop quickly at the pain lancing through my ribs. Does he have a split personality? Or does he have me pegged as being really that forgiving? If so I need to work on my hard arse image more thoroughly.

  “Faith?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did your... Was your... What I’m trying to ask is... Was your life here so awful?”

  I prop myself up on my elbows to look at him properly. Is he serious?

  “Really? Are you that dense? How would you enjoy it, Fraser?” Finally, a flicker of remorse darkens his eyes. “Have you never heard of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes? How would you like to be experimented on relentlessly? Do you think it’s fun?”

  “Well, no but... most tests were only blood samples or injections to...”

  “Shut up! Just shut up okay. You’re talking through your arse and even if that were true, what kind of life do you think that is? Do you know what, don’t answer. There’s no reasoning with guys like you.”

  “Guys like me?” He queries.

  “Think they’re above the law, concerned with their own self-importance, no morals...”

  “Okay stop, I get the picture. You have a pretty low opinion of me.”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t I?” I snap, getting really pissed off now that he seems to have forgotten the last few hours, the last few years. It’s like he has selective memory issues. How dare he try to make me feel sorry for him and his actions as if he had no idea the mental scars it would leave.

  The trolley I’m lying on stops moving and I pull my gaze away from Fraser, remembering the woman also walking with us, witnessing our argument. She opens a door before continuing to wheel me through.

  “What about you?” I question.

  She turns wide eyes on me. “Sorry?” She questions timidly.

  “You heard me. Do you agree with Fraser?”

  She looks at him before looking back down at me and clearing her throat. “Professor Laudnam is... he shows great initiative. We... I look up to him.”

  “Oh, for God sake!” I huff.

  “Wait, you didn’t let me finish. We all have our flaws, some people are well-intentioned, and the most brilliant minds are not exempt from making mistakes. It’s how they try to rectify those mistakes that show their true character.”

  “Yeah that doesn’t answer my question, doesn’t even come close. Let’s just get this over with.”

  I reach out my arm to Fraser so he can help me climb down from the trolley but he’s staring at the woman, dumbstruck. She blushes and averts her eyes at his intense staring. I roll my eyes and drop down to the floor unaided. Standing up straight bloody hurts so I walk like a hunchback and settle myself on a leather, mahogany seat situated opposite a desk.

  “Ready?” I ask, “Or do you two need a moment?”

  Chapter 24

  Kye

  I exit the room I’ve been unconsciously hiding in. I have responsibilities but I can’t unsee the things I saw and because of that I can’t function as well as I’d like. I have a film feed playing constantly in my head and I’m trying desperately to ignore it. I have to find my girl, I have to destroy those tubes and I have to get my men home again. I need this to be over. I need Faith in my arms and then maybe I’ll be able to breathe properly again.

  I walk into the Advance room and notice that Johnson is now awake, he’s standing in the tube, face pressed up against the door and the deepest shade of red I’ve ever seen. I missed seeing his first reaction to his predicament and though that would have been fun, I’m past caring. I walk closer to his tube and regard him. I take a step closer and the door opens. What the fuck? I aim my phaser at him and tell him not to move. I step back slightly and the door closes. Strange. Is there some kind of sensor? I stay in position not wanting to accidentally open the door again; I just want a little chat with him before he dies.

  “I’m from the future,” I clue him in. His mouth freezes in an O and his eyes widen in interest before his brows knit together. I can see his brain trying to work out if I’m being truthful and if so, how? How did I get here?

  “In the future, there are no records of you, nothing. Now I find that interesting because if you really achieved greatness with all these experiments then your name should be known, right?”

  He looks puzzled, mulling it over in his brain.

  “You are a nobody, you never made history. All of this doesn’t exist in my time. Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

  He doesn’t answer so I continue, getting nicely into my stride, “I’m telling you because I believe it means someone stopped you. Someone killed you? And therefore everything you were working towards crumbled. And then I wonder why I was able to travel here, fate must have a purpose for me. What do you think that is?”

  I watch as my words settle in and the threat my words were laced with becomes clear. He swallows before shocking me with, “If I’d been assassinated don’t you think there’d be a record about that?”

  “Not necessarily. Not if you weren’t important enough to make history’s radar. Don’t look so glum. I know you believe in your importance but not everyone shares that view.”

  “What’s it like?” He asks.

  “What, the future?”

  He nods.

  I see no harm in telling him, he’s not going to have a chance to repeat what I say. He won’t be able to change or influence what happens in my time. Today is the day he will breathe his last.

>   “It’s amazing. Technology doesn’t rule, it’s not needed. That’s where your vision is wrong. To live we need very little, just the basics and over time that has been proven. You’ll never understand, you never contributed anything of worth. This building is in ruins, left discarded to rot away. The women you used and abused went through it for nothing, nothing except to satisfy your twisted ideology of a better world. One that you failed to create. One that you were stopped from creating.”

  “How can that be?” He murmurs so quietly to himself that it’s almost inaudible. His puzzlement is clearly defined.

  “How does it feel?” I ask.

  “It’s a little... destroying...”

  “No, I didn’t mean how does it feel to know you don’t change anything. I meant how does it feel to be helpless? To know you have no control about what’s going to happen to you? Knowing that begging won’t change my mind? And that no-one will come along to help or rescue you?”

  I’m watching his conflicting emotions, his face doesn’t hide very well what he’s thinking and that pleases me no fucking end. Because he deserves this, he deserves so much more. I’m not an animal though, killing can’t be nice. It can’t be good for the soul or for my mind-set going forward so I won’t drag it out. I shouldn’t really be conversing with him but I want him to finally understand that his actions have caused this. I want him to grasp that what happens here isn’t normal, it’s not acceptable. He isn’t invincible or above the law, someone will always come along to put right the wrongs that people who believe they are above reproach commit.

  “Why are you so concerned about my facility? If it doesn’t exist in your time, why do you hate it so much? What could I have possibly done to you?” He shouts, his fists bang against the tube, his anger at knowing the truth of my words finally breaking through, next the begging will start.

  “I didn’t say it doesn’t exist, it’s in ruins. But to answer your question its simple, Faith is mine. I’m fiercely protective of what’s mine. That woman you tried so hard to break belongs to me, not you. The shit she’s endured because of you, because of this place has built an anger in me that can’t be tamed. I won’t have her live in fear.”